The legislation would make it easier for unmarried couples in Colorado, including gays and lesbians, to make medical decision for incapacitated partners and leave property to their partners.

The measure would apply to same and opposite-sex unmarried couples.

A similar bill already has already passed the House.  The two bills must still be harmonized and have a final vote in both houses.

Republicans attacked the measure, calling it an attempt to circumvent the state constitution which bans same-sex marriage.

In 2006, voters passed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.  The same year, they rejected another ballot issue that would have given same-sex couples many of the rights of marriage including property inheritance rights and the power to make medical and funeral arrangements.

During debate on the bill, Sen. Scott Renfroe (R) quoted from the Bible and called homosexuality an “offense to God.”

“When we create laws that go against biblically what we are supposed to stand for, we are allowing to go forward a sin,” Renfroe said on the Senate floor. 

“We are taking sins and making them to be legally OK. That is wrong. I’m not saying this is the only sin out there. We have murder. … We don’t make laws making murder legal.”

The remarks brought a swift response from Sen. Jennifer Veiga (D) Colorado’s first openly gay lawmaker and the Senate sponsor of the bill.

“I will stand here today and tell you that God also created me, and the last time I checked, I am who I am,” she said.

And to critics who claimed the bill violates the gay marriage ban, Veiga said: “This brings no two people, myself, my partner, no other gay and lesbian partner, closer to walking down that aisle. It provides no tax benefits. It provides no other benefits. This is not about marriage. This is about health care. This is an equality issue and a fairness issue.”

At the center of the battle between Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins is a six-year old girl named Isabelle who was conceived through artificial insemination to Lisa Miller.

At the time Miller was in a relationship with Jenkins, which had been formalized by a civil union in Vermont where they resided.

When the relationship between the two women soured and they split up, a judge in Vermont gave Jenkins temporary visitation rights with the child.

Miller then fled with her daughter to Virginia, which has some of the most anti-gay legislation in the country. She then declared she was no longer a lesbian, hired a conservative Christian law firm, the Liberty Counsel, and went to court in Virginia seeking sole custody of the child.

Miller argued that since gay unions are banned in Virginia she was not obligated to abide by the Vermont ruling.

Jenkins fought the application on the grounds that the case was already before the court in Vermont.

Last year, the Vermont Supreme Court unanimously concluded that “under well-established laws designed to protect children and families” the Vermont Family Court properly ordered visitation between Janet and her daughter.

Liberty Counsel appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case.

The case then returned to the Virginia Supreme Court, which ruled in June that the Vermont high court’s ruling should stand. The court cited the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, which says custody orders of one state must be enforced in other states.

But Miller returned to a lower court in Virginia requesting a halt in the visitation order.

On Monday, Frederick County Circuit Judge John Prosser dismissed the application, saying the courts had already ruled in Miller presented no new evidence to reopen the case.

ACLU attorney Rebecca Glenberg, who is representing Jenkins, said that Miller’s lawyers were trying to re-litigate the case and attempting an “end-run” around the state Supreme Court decision.

Liberty Counsel said it intends to appeal on Miller’s behalf.